The Actor, Recasted
by fiction.is.life
Summary: Neal reads an article that brings back memories.


**TITLE**: The Actor, Recasted  
**FANDOM**: White Collar  
**RATING**: T, it's pretty tame actually  
**SUMMARY**: Neal reads an article that brings back memories.  
**PROMPT**: Recent news  
**CHARACTERS**: Neal Caffery, Mozzie, Peter Burke  
**DISCLAIMER**: I wish I was smart enough to come up with something this awesome to own.  
**NOTES**: My second White Collar fic. And on the same day that I wrote my first. Oh, what a show! So inspiring :)

Also, used a few quotes throughout the story. Cited at the end. Enjoy!

* * *

_A significant Pablo Picasso painting was damaged after a woman attending art class lost her balance, fell into "The Actor" and tore it, The Metropolitan Museum of Art said._

_The unusually large canvas, measuring 77.25 by 45.38 inches (196 by 115 centimeters), sustained a vertical tear of about six inches (15 centimeters) in the lower right-hand corner in the accident on Friday._

Neal Caffery read the article on the internet as he sipped his morning coffee and waited for Peter to be done with his meeting. They rarely let Neal in on those meetings, and when they did they usually wanted something from him.

Small prices and all that.

The article continued on to say how undamaged the portrait was, how the woman – an art student (who would likely never be allowed to set foot in The Met again, Neal thought.) – had missed the focal point of the painting and that it could be easily repaired in the weeks to come. "Repair work should be "unobtrusive," the museum had added.

Caffrey smiled. If the museum only knew.

~ FLASHBACK ~

"Neal. No"

Neal put down his newspaper and smiled.

"Yes."

"Neal. This is insane. Do you want to get caught?"

"Oh, come on Moz!" Neal got up from the table and began to dig into his pocket for some cash to pay for their breakfast. His friend and right hand man, Mozzie, was slowly finishing up his biscotti. "You know you want to."

"Actually. No, I don't."

Neal grabbed his jacket and headed out into the cold, New York winter. He shivered and put his jacket on, grabbing his pair of black leather gloves from his pocket. He pulled up his coat collar and began to give a cursory look to his surroundings.

It was never a bad idea to be careful. Not when the FBI was looking for his fine ass.

Neal smiled to himself, grinned at a pair of women that passed in front of him, and then turned to see Mozzie finally stepping out to join him.

"You're really insane, you know that?"

Neal's smile got that much brighter.

Moz was in.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Picasso donation called _The Actor_ from Thelma Chrysler Foy, the automobile heiress. She had handed the painting over to the museum in 1952 and it had since been displayed, proudly, in the museum.

The painting was a rarity of Picasso's. It was rather large and not one of his most popular pieces, but it was made around 1904, and it certainly was going to be quite the challenge for one Neal J. Caffery III. (He felt like quite a J, and a third. He felt it brought character to his character.)

Neal couldn't stop smiling at the pictures that Mozzie had brought him.

"You can't pull this off."

The Met was throwing a huge party, mostly because they needed the publicity every so many years, and the money certainly wasn't going to hurt. Neal III loved a good party.

He smiled up from the pictures at his friend. His faithful friend, who was doubting him. Him. Neal Caffrey. Not be able to pull a heist.

Pah!

"Oh, I can."

"The power of daring anything their fancy suggest, as always been conceded to the painter and the poet."

"Both of which would certainly fancy a stroll around the old training grounds. What do you say?"

"No."

"Oh, come on, Mozzie. You want to." Neal glanced down at the photos on the table and nodded at the work Mozzie had already done for him. "You know you want to. And you know you want me to. And you know I want me to."

"You know what they say, confidence is always overconfidence."

"No one says that, Mozz."

"Robert Byrne says that."

Neal chose, wisely, to ignore Mozz and continue on his study of the pictures. He had two weeks to copy it before the party and he wasn't about to let Mozzie's lack of confidence cloud his thinking. Because this is what Neal did. This was his _raison d'être_.Besides, Kate liked fancy parties.

Neal was beaming. He was smiling pretty, feeling sexy, and he had just pulled off one of his greatest, no _the _greatest switcheroo ever. In plain sight of ever visitor, waiter, hostess, and camera.

And he was walking right out of The Met. Clean getaway. His right hand, often skeptic but never ever doubtful, man Mozzie was right behind him. Kate hadn't come, had had her own thing to do, but she was going to just _love_ this story. She had quite the thing for the classics, and this was classic Caffery.

Sleek and suave.

The door valet held the door open for him and Mozzie, carrying Nick Sheldon's most current and generous purchase.

With a little _special_ something, something so to speak _wrapped_ up inside.

Mozzie was wrong confidence wasn't over confidence. As the great Ali said, it's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself.

~ FLASHBACK ENDS ~

The door to Peter's office opened up and Neal closed up the news article and cleared his history. He pretended to be playing solitaire and smiled up at Agent Burke himself.

"Well, someone looks grumpy."

Peter gave him a look that clearly stated that he didn't want to hear it. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Neal had _kind of_ pulled a Houdini on their stake out last night.

Nah.

Neal smiled brightly at his partner.

"Anything new?"

"Yeah, a few surveillance shots." Peter threw the new file onto his desk, and Neal reached over to check out his latest case.

Back to business as usual.

He'd see if he could get a copy of that article later, for Mozzie's collect. As they say, self-confidence is the result of a successfully survived risk.

END.

References

The power of daring anything their fancy suggest, as always been conceded to the painter and the poet. -_Horace_

Confidence is always overconfidence. -_Robert Byrne_

It's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself. -_Muhammad Ali_

Self-confidence is the result of a successfully survived risk. - _Jack Gibb_

Article from: news . yahoo . com

http://news. yahoo. com/s/ afp/20100125 /ts_alt_afp/ usartaccidentpicasso

**A/N:** Also, as far as I know, there was no such party. I didn't do that kind of research. The article came out yesterday. But I do doubt if there had been such a party, Neal Caffery would certainly have wanted the center piece.

Thanks for reading!


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